Today was the kids' last day of school. Haley's last day of elementary, too. After they left this morning, I spotted her pre-algebra book lying under a stack of catalogs in the front room, so Kaleb and I walked to the school to take it to her.

The halls already had that ringing quality that means "empty." Classroom floors were blank carpets framed with desks; blackboards wiped clean, bulletin boards only empty cork board. I admitted to myself: on the last day of school, I miss being a teacher. Miss the feeling of closing the door, literally, on another year. The cycle of endings and beginnings is so clearly defined for teachers.

I wandered past Nathan's classroom and suddenly I found that I had a lump in my throat. Trust it to me to cry at the sight of first graders clustered around their (very pregnant) teacher for one last story. When I walked down the 5th/6th grade hall towards Haley's room, the lump got bigger. I know this is a cliched way to feel. I know it is silly to keep saying "time goes too fast." But it really, really hit me: she is growing up. And I don't know how it happened, how she went from the kindergartner who wouldn't wear anything but twirly dresses to this gangly, sometimes-delightful, sometimes-grumpy, always-intelligent girl.

So, yeah. I cried a bit, walking home. Because school is over and so is THIS particular chapter in my life, when all my Bigs were in the same school and could walk together, when they were all at the same place at the same time. Kaleb in the stage he is in right now, which is full of not just "no" but "no, NOT!" and with temper tantrums but also with his exploding vocabulary and quick intelligence. It won't ever be like it is right now. Maybe it will be even better. But I still don't want to let go of now.

There are some flowers in my garden that are just flowers---pretty things that make me smile. But there are other flowers that feel to me like friends; I feel a sense of reunion when they pop up each year. While we were away, some of my flowery friends came and went without me ever getting to say hello. Namely, my gorgeous lavender-tipped-with-white irises. Iris are friendly to me because I have so many memories connected with them: the time my dad correctly diagnosed the bugs that were eating them (my first---but, alas, not last---brush with the dreaded aphid); conversations with my sister Becky and admiring her beautiful iris; the complete stranger Kendell and I met one day in a nursery we'd never been to, who on the spot invited us to his garden to take a splitting of his iris; splitting my own iris and sharing them with friends. Plus, I know my grandma would love my favorite ones, too, since purple was her favorite color. I also like the smell---vaguely cinnamon; they smell, to me, like summer freedom since they always bloom near the end of the school year. Mine don't usually finish blooming so quickly, so I'm not sure what happened while we were gone, but I was sad to miss out on their blooming.

But today I walked out into my back yard and spotted this new friend:

Isn't it gorgeous? I'm nearly ashamed to admit that I bought this iris at, of all places, Walmart last fall. It was in a clearance bin and I picked it up for fifty cents. Since I had zero expectations for it, I forgot all about it. So I was thrilled this morning at this sweet flower. It's a little bit old fashioned to me; it reminds me of a blouse an old woman would wear. But I still love it---delicate and pale and feminine. It is my happy thing for today!

I've never understood the draw of the beach. Not that I can't imagine its appeal, the endless surf, the wide reaches of sand, the appeal of a border (water meets land). But because I've had so few beach experiences, I never really "got" it. The first time I went to the beach I was 14 or 15, and then it was another eight years or so before I got back. If I'm counting right---and maybe I'm forgetting one---I've been to the beach just five times in my life. Not enough to really understand it.

But I think I got a little taste of it on our vacation.

It's day six of a ten-day vacation. One long day of driving, twelve hours with just bathroom breaks and a stop at In 'N Out Burgers in Barstow. Then four days of nearly non-stop going, SeaWorld and Wild Animal Park and Knotts Berry Farm. And while I love and adore my family, and I love and adore vacations, by now I'm nearly insane with my need for a little bit of solitude. But a family of six in one motel room does NOT allow for any solitude. You're lucky if you can visit the bathroom without someone bugging you. Throw in a cranky nearly-two-year-old who is just not quite sure what's going on, who despite the thrill of riding the Log Peeler at Knott's Berry Farm eight times in a row, despite seeing all kinds of fishies and touching the nose of a dolphin, despite eating fast food on a fairly regular basis, really just wants to go home. And, yeah, short hair or no, Crazy Amy started coming out. Not a pretty situation.

But the beach: just what I needed.

We went to Huntington Beach with some friends who live in L. A. It was chilly and windy, but everyone was excited to be at the beach, anyway. The three bigs shed their clothes as they ran for the surf, and Kaleb? Kaleb was nearly insane with happiness. For a good five minutes he just ran in wide, loopy, sandy circles. Our friends' kids played with my kids and for a few minutes I could simply relax. That's when it hit me, the beach magic. I think one reason why it's so good is because it is simple. It's just sand, water, sun, and wind. Uncomplicated. No rushing or lines or waiting or crowds (well, I'd guess there are crowds in the summer; on a chilly May Friday, not so much). Even the colors are simple, biege, grey, white, and blue.

Then Haley needed to go to the bathroom, so I walked over with her. While I waited, Kaleb and I wandered around, and I discovered something that thrilled my geeky self: poems on the beach. Two poems, inscribed on the cement in circles. Fragments of poems, one (the Shelley one) I recognized, another I had never read:

from "as I Ebbed With The Ocean of Life"
~Whitman

Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,
A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating,
drifted at random.

from "Stanzas Written in Dejection"
Shelley

I see the Deep's untrampled floor
   With green and purple sea-weeds strown;
   I see the waves upon the shore
   Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown:
   I sit upon the sands alone;
   The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
   Is flashing round me, and a tone
   Arises from its measured motion -
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Not caring how silly I looked, I read the poems outloud. And I thought about what a poem is to me. If I could define what a poem is, I would say it is the only way to express one specific emotion or observation. It is managing to express something that otherwise you cannot say. And then it seemed I found poems everywhere, in the way the light glinted off the bodies of my children, the pulling-away of the sand under my feet as the waves rolled back, how the color of sand covered with water became more than just tan, but an elegant, transparent pane of brown swirled with white and bronze flecks that glinted in the sunlight. How Kaleb's fearless enthusiasm for the waves, which defied my desire to keep him dry, finally won out; his sopping-wet, shivering little body and the endless hike back to the car with a soggy-cold thirty-pound toddler on my hip was was worth the exuberance on his face when he finally broke out of my grip, rushed the waves, and went head-first into the water. Another poem. And sitting on a rise in the sand with Kaleb, resting on our solitary way back to the car (everyone else walked the rest of the way to the pier), just watching the waves.

And then there was this, before we started our walk toward the pier. Kaleb was playing happily with our friends' kids, and Nathan was being buried in sand; Haley and Jake were searching for shells, so I joined them. We ended up wandering away from each other a bit, spread out along the surf. I managed to find five perfect shells, unbroken, unmarred. And then they showed me their handfuls of shells, some whole, some broken, all treasures. All poems.

And I started to get it.

I think I could love the beach.

Last night, a few hours after we got home, our friends the Hopkins stopped by. We've been friends with the Hopkins nearly since we were newlyweds. Kendell and James worked together and formed a fast friendship right away. Their anniversary is the same day as ours, although they've been married five years longer than us. Their three youngest kids are nearly the same ages as our three oldest. We all get along. So it just works for us to all hang out together. They'd been taking care of our house while we were gone and wanted to drop off a few things (and pick up their GPS which they loaned us for the trip, and I have to say...HOLY COW, the GPS is an awesome invention! we'd still be stuck in San Diego trying to find our hotel had we not had it!) and to invite Haley to a church function with their daughter, Jessie, who is just a year older than Haley. They've been friends since the day Haley was born. They've hiked together, gone on vacations together, hung out with each other while their parents went out. Sleep overs, marathon My Scene or Littlest Pet Shop playdates, trips to the mall, a few arguments here and there: their friendship is a constant. They even got their ears pierced on the same day. Here's a photo of them, last fall during a hike:

In the LDS church, the organization for teenage girls is called Young Women. They enter Young Women at the age of twelve and leave it when they turn 18. During those years, they work on a goal-setting program called Personal Progress. There are several different categories of values, and they set and achieve goals in each of the categories to complete this program. Usually it takes the girls most of their time in Young Women to achieve their personal progress awards, but Jessie has already achieved hers---she turned 13 in February! The night to celebrate her achievements was tonight. 7:00 pm, Haley and I headed over to their church.

As I listened to Jessie talk about the things she'd done to achieve her goals, I felt nearly as proud of her as I would if it had been Haley. She is accomplished and confident; Haley asked me why I was crying (with that "my mom is SO weird" head shake that is combined with this compassionate look so I feel both a little bit mocked and a lot understood) and I couldn't quite put it into words for her. I remember the day Jessie was born, remember how happy her mom Lisa was to have a girl after having two boys, remember going to the hospital to visit them. Remember holding her when she was just more than one day old. I remember buying the gift I gave them, this pink, delicate, throw-type blanket, because I bought one for myself, too (even though we weren't really even thinking about getting pregnant yet). During the refreshments after the program, as I watched Haley and Jessie laugh together, I was filled with this little epiphany, the reason why I cried a bit. I thought about Haley's other friends, many of whom she's been friends with since she was three or four, and how I've watched them grow up, too. I realized that I feel this sort of motherly/friendship-ish feeling towards each of those girls. I want them to grow up and be happy and successful nearly as much as I want Haley to grow up to be happy and successful. It makes me happy to see them growing into real people, to see how their identities are starting to form. I imagine that I'll be sad when they fail or make mistakes and I will cheer for their accomplishments. One day I'll likely go to their weddings.

As I thought about all these girls that Haley has as friends and accomplices throughout her teenage years, I couldn't help but get a little teary. (You had to know the tears were coming again, right?) Of course, I know that during the next few years, as they start junior high and go through the crucible that is girl friendships, things will likely change. Some friends will likely fall by the wayside. Others will get picked up. But knowing she will have friends, and knowing that I will feel kindly towards those girls, makes me feel a little bit more peaceful about my baby girl growing up. Because all those other girls are growing up along with her, and soon they'll be more important to her than anything else (I remember those days clearly, when your family just didn't matter as much as your friends), and I think she's picked some really good friends to go on her adolescent journey with her. Those friends of hers are like surrogate daughters to me, other delightful and beautiful creatures I feel lucky to have in my life. I'm not sure if that is strange or not. But tonight it feels like a blessing, one of the perks of having a daughter.

jiggity jig.

• Piles of laundry
• Luggage everywhere
• Laundry
• Sandy shells to be sorted and claimed
• Laundry
• Stuff from the car (laptop, movies, travel toys, extra water bottles, etc, etc, etc): where to put it all?
• Photos to be downloaded
• Oh, and did I mention laundry?

Yep, all the tell-tale signs are here...we are home. From a very long vacation. Three days in San Diego, four days in L. A., and two days in Vegas. It was a good trip---the kids all had fun, we managed to not lose anyone (even Kaleb who was NOT happy about hanging out in his stroller while the Bigs got to run around and go on rides, and so spent a good portion of the trip walking around Sea World and the Wild Animal Park and Knott's Berry Farm; he's still exhausted) or have any major accidents. I almost filled up two memory cards with photos and my travel notebook is bulging with words & park maps.

But it's good to be home. I have thoughts on Vegas (don't think we'll be going back there any time soon, even though it's relatively close to us) and on the beach (I found poems there!). But for now, it's back to the laundry piles!

I'm going to share this poem today, just because. Because I think he has it right, and because I am feeling a little stone-like today, and because it would be my way too, and because I just love this poem.

"Stone"

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.

I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

~Charles Simic

I love the poet William Stafford. I wish he were still alive so I could obsess about meeting him, stalk down one of his readings, and stand in line for his autograph. I like his face, as to me it looks like that of the kind of man who would really listen to you when you spoke. But I love his poems even more. They are so good because---well, for many reasons, but the most immediate one is that the first time you read one, you think "OK, I get this." (Unlike poems that you read and think "HUH?") But don't confuse the immediacy for shallowness; read the poem again and again and you find layers and layers of meaning. An immediate "ah ha" followed by lots of thinking and probing---that makes a good poem in my book.

I've been thinking about the following poem often, lately, since it ties in so closely to my current mood, which is one of trying to not waste any time---to really live and be present in every moment. Are you ready? Because he wants you to be:

You Reading This, Be Ready
                               ~William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life---

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Really---what else is there? Stafford is right: we only have now. So when you're doing reading here, I say go out and pay attention and live fully, notice the light on the floor, remember the poem you memorized in tenth grade, appreciate your breath and your thoughts. Don't waste a second.

I saw this meme on Sophia's blog a few days ago and thought I'd bloglift it from her. Just because!

Two Names I Go by
1. Mom
2. Hampster (Kendell has called me this since we were first dating...remember the rhyming copy guy from SNL?)

Two Things I am Wearing Right Now:
1. My favorite PJ bottoms
2. My new zippie-hoodie from the Gap

Two Things I Want (or have) in a Relationship:
1. Kindness
2. Conversation

Two of My Favorite Things to Do (that you maybe don't know):
1. Scrub the kitchen sink (strange, I know, considering my Housework Aversion Problem, but I really do like scrubbing the sink; it's instant gratification)
2. Balance my credit card statement

Things I Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. A Wacom tablet
2. More time for writing---there are stories finally brewing in me but no time to dedicate to crafting them.

Two Pets I Have:
1. Emily, the very old kitty, named for the poet of course
2. Does Kaleb count as a pet? As a pet monkey? ;)

Two things I Did Last Night:
1.  Worked on my new Big Picture Class (Check it out!) 
2.  Made sugar cookies

Two Things I Ate Today:
1. My favorite Gandolfo's sandwich, the burning bridge.
2. Rice Chex for breakfast, with banana on the top.

Two People I Just Talked to Last:
1. My sister Becky
2. My sister-in-law Cindy

Two Things I'm Doing Tomorrow:
1. Go to the mall
2. Go to Costco

Two Longest Car Rides:
1.  San Francisco and back
2.  L. A. and back (I wish I had more opportunities for road trips. I like road trips!)

Two Favorite Holidays:
1.  Thanksgiving
2.  Christmas (although I was tempted to list Thanksgiving twice!)

Two Favorite Beverages:
1.   Pepsi, although I am surely but steadily beating my addiction
2.  Sobe Lean (really, I love this stuff, it's tart and tasty and doesn't have any high fructose corn syrup!)

You remember Samson, right? From the bible. He was strong because he didn't cut his hair, but once Delilah found that out, she cut his hair and took his power away.

Well, I've decided that I'm the anti-Samson. Because as my hair grows longer and longer, I get more and more crazy. My sane-Amy strength wanes. But hair cuts are one of Those Issues. The kind of issue that, ironically, also sends me over the edge, because the $927 I'd pay for a hair cut makes me question if I am doing the right thing by staying home and making it so difficult to swing that $927 haircut, not to mention the money I'd really like to spend on lessons for my kids. And it spirals down from there, so that thinking about getting my hair cut turns me into a quivering mass of nerves and saline.

It didn't used to be this bad, back before my hair girl raised her prices. She cuts hair out of her home salon but her new prices make her as expensive as a high-end salon. And though I LOVE how she cuts my hair, well---it's that money thing again. See the cycle? However, my sister-in-law just discovered someone new. Someone who doesn't charge $927 for a haircut. Someone who gave me an awesome haircut at 7:15 on Friday morning. Happy Mother's Day to me!

And with a few chops of the scissors, Crazy Amy is gone. I can now function in the world of adults again without questioning my life choices. Of course, Samson's strength is my weakness. Because as soon as I get it cut, my hair starts growing again. Good for Samson, bad for Amy. Still---it's a little less crazy-making to know there's someone I can go back to!

And with that, dear friends, I bid you a very merry Mother's Day. I hope those sweet, sloppy cards and droopy flowers from church will make you just as happy as they make me!

I love it when friends or family have babies. Finding the perfect gift for a new baby is one of my life's pleasures. Is there anything more fun than shopping at BabyGap? Well, actually, yeah. Because ever since I got my sewing machine, I've been totally into making gifts. Browsing through flannel---is there any other fabric for a new baby?---at the mom-and-pop fabric store just makes me happy. Usually I buy a bunch of 1/3-yard-long pieces of appropriately-colored flannel (read: pastel) and whip up some burp cloths, but when my friend Donna had her baby last week, I decided to do something different. This is my friend who lost her youngest last August, so I have been so happy for her to have this new baby. Plus, I loved the flannel I found so much that I wanted it to be used for longer than a burp cloth (which, really, you only use for three or four months or so). So I took a deep breath and decided to make her a strip rag quilt.

Now, you have to know something about me and sewing projects. When I made my first projects (an enormous rag quilt for Haley's bed, some flannel receiving blankets and Kaleb's baby quilt) I must have emailed Kelly (who is the queen of all sewing projects) at least 80 times for encouragement and instruction. I've gotten better since then---I can speed right through a straight line instead of sewing as slow as an old lady with a broken hip walks. I've got a mother who can sew almost anything and who makes gorgeous and very perfectly SQUARE quilts. Me, not so good with the square thing. Even with the rotary cutter and half a dozen quilting rulers, I mess up a lot. So quilts that require perfect squareness aren't my forte. The beauty of the rag quilt (besides how cute they are) is that it doesn't require perfect squareness. A little off-squareness is hardly noticeable. Still, I wasn't sure if I was up to the challenge I'd set for myself.

But it turned out so well. I planned out the "design," which is obviously fairly simple, but I at least managed to get just the right amount of fabric. (My last big sewing project, Haley's Halloween costume, required three separate trips to the fabric store as my calculate-the-yardage math was off.) It didn't take very long, either, only two Kaleb naps and an hour's worth of watching tv while I snipped the seams. And, get this: it's totally square. How cool am I? Tomorrow I'm going to go visit Donna and hold her certain-to-be-sweet baby. I'll probably cry a little. Both because babies always make me cry and because I'm sad to not have that quilt in my house anymore. It's so cute it makes me want to have another baby (of course, nearly anything pink does that, but you get the point). Here it is in all its cuteness (I folded the corner down so you can see the back because I honestly wasn't sure how a pattern instead of a solid for the back would work, but I've now decided I like the pattern much better than a solid) :